A San Francisco judge has ruled that a proposal to ban circumcision, which would have been voted on by citizens later this year must be withdrawn.

In a ruling yesterday, Judge Loretta Giorgi found that the measure, which has drawn fierce opposition from the city’s Jewish population would violate a California law that makes regulating medical procedures a state — not a city – matter.

Male circumcision is a religious requirement in both Islam and Judaism.

Judge Giorgi ordered San Francisco’s election director to remove the measure from city ballots.

The ban would have made it illegal to “circumcise, excise, cut or mutilate the whole or any part of the foreskin, testicles or penis of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years.”

Had the measure been enacted, any person who performed circumcisions would face a misdemeanor charge and have to pay up to a fine of up to $1,000 or serve a maximum of one year in prison.

The measure was placed on the ballot after San Francisco resident Lloyd Schofield collected more than 12,000 signatures.

Marc Stern, associate general counsel for legal advocacy at the American Jewish Committee, said the Jewish community had been “clearly appalled” by the proposed ban.

“This is the most direct assault on Jewish religious practice in the United States,” said Stern. “It’s unprecedented in American Jewish life.”

“We would agree with the Jewish religious and legal scholars regarding the practice, and … to my knowledge, there is no compelling medical reason to ban it,” said Ibrahim Ramey, the human civil rights program director at the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation.

“There are religious sensitivities that are involved and the decision to circumcise ought best be left to the parents of the child, and not a political referendum.”

Stern said that the Jewish community has held strategy meetings to diminish the proposal.

“We want to erase the message that anyone else can try to take away a central ritual, practiced for centuries without harm, to make sure no one tries to replicate this,” Stern said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of circumcision among baby boys in the United States seems to be declining. The government agency found that the incidence of circumcision dropped from 56 percent in 2006 to 32.5 percent in 2009. But those numbers do not include procedures performed outside of hospitals, including Jewish rituals that are usually performed in the home, or circumcisions that were not reimbursed by insurance.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said there is some scientific evidence that points to potential medical benefits.

However the data are insufficient for the organisation to recommend routine circumcision in newborns.

But Dr. Douglas Diekema, director of education for the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children’s Hospital, said that the procedure has been shown to reduce the risk of infections.

“Boys who are circumcised have fewer urinary tract infections during infancy,” said Diekema. “These are serious infections that require hospitalisation.”

Some data also suggest that circumcision reduces the risk of contracting HIV, HPV and penile cancer.

Last month, the leader of the Labour Party in the Seanad, Ivana Bacik, said that she would favour legislation banning male circumcision in Ireland.

Speaking at an international atheist conference, she said she would approve of an Irish ban on ‘male genital mutilation’ an apparent reference to male circumcision.

She later defended her comments in the Seanad, saying she didn’t “believe that the cutting of a child’s genitals for anything other than medical reasons is ever justified”.